Just yesterday I said “Los Angeles film fans, April and May is a great time to live in the City of Angels.” There’s the Hero Complex Film Festival, EW’s CapeTown Film Festival, the Turner Classic Movies Film Festival and now Target Presents AFI Night at the Movies.

It’ll take place April 24 at the Arclight Hollywood in Los Angeles, CA and feature the following line-up:

Richard Linklater‘s new film Bernie is a strange thing: a sort of comedy based on a true story in which a well-liked small town mortician, played by Jack Black, befriended a not-so well liked older widow, played by Shirley MacLaine… and reportedly murdered her. But it isn’t just the story that is strange: Bernie is co-written by Skip Hollandsworth, who wrote the Texas Monthly article that inspired the film, and it features interviews with the residents of the town where the actual story took place.

The new trailer for the film, which premiered last year at the LA Film Festival and will soon play SXSW, shows the movie’s comic tone, but also points to a more interesting aspect, thanks to the inclusion of some of the interviews with actual residents. Read More »

The latest actor to sign on to Ben Stiller‘s remake of the imaginative Danny Kaye comedy The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is Adam Scott. He joins stiller, Kristen Wiig, Shirley MacLaine and Patton Oswalt in the story of a LIFE magazine photo editor (Stiller) who daydreams his way out of a dull reality. No word on Scott’s role at this point, but given that Kristen Wiig plays Mitty’s workplace crush, I wouldn’t be surprised to find him playing another LIFE staffer who competes for her attention. [Deadline]

After the break, The Evil Dead finds a new potential victim and the sci-fi thriller Oblivion gets a Game of Thrones player. Read More »

While half the talk that involves Kristen Wiig of late seems to revolve around whether or not she wants to do a sequel to Bridesmaids (she doesn’t) the actress is moving on to other stuff.

She has already shot Imogene and another indie called Revenge of the Jolly!, and now she’s looking at a role in Ben Stiller‘s remake of the classic comic fantasy The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Read More »

If Lindsay Lohan seems like less than ideal casting for the role of Elizabeth Taylor in Lifetime’s Liz and Dick, how does Megan Fox strike you? In a talk with E!, executive producer Larry Thompson named the Transformers actress as one of the other names up for the lead. “I’ve been talking to Lindsay Lohan directly, and with her reps, and have been in conversations with other actresses, including Megan Fox,” he said. “It’s a very serious selection…. It’s like casting for Hollywood royalty.”

It’s unclear how seriously Fox is considering the part. While she’s not the most respected actress around, she’s got a couple of interesting movie roles coming up this year — Jennifer Westfeldt’s Friends With Kids and Judd Apatow’s This is Forty — and a Lifetime original movie seems like it’d be a step down for her. Whatever the decision, though, it’ll have to be made soon as Liz and Dick is scheduled to begin shooting in Canada this spring. [via The Playlist]

After the jump, Tommy Lee Jones is a legendary American hero and Shirley MacLaine is Ben Stiller’s mom.

Sharon Stone was a big deal in the ’90s thanks to Basic Instinct in 1992, but she’s got a lower profile lately. She’s been working very steadily, but it doesn’t feel that way. I can’t remember the last time I saw a memorable Stone performance. Probably either Broken Flowers (’05) or Alpha Dog (’06). Law & Order: SVU fans would probably point to her recurring role on that show. I don’t know if anyone would point to Basic Instinct 2 (’06) even though the image above makes her appearance in that one look like a different version of the X-Men’s Emma Frost.

She might get more attention playing the mother of a porn star. Stone is now set to play the mother of Linda Lovelace (possibly played by Amanda Seyfried) in Lovelace. That’s one of two Linda Lovelace films in development right now, and the one that will be directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (Howl). Peter Sarsgaard is in talks to play Lovelace’s husband an accused pimp and abuser Chuck Traynor. Andy Bellin and W. Merritt Johnson scripted based on the book The Complete Linda Lovelace by Eric Danville. [AP]

(The other Linda Lovelace film is Matthew Wilder’s Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story.)

After the break, find casting info for an indie called Wild Oats, and Ezra Miller’s denial that he has anything to do with WB’s Akira. Read More »